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BERNARD LONERGAN AND THOMAS KUHN;
THE ADVANCE OF KNOWLEDGE
CHRISTOPHER KRALL S.J.
September 19, 2009
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
1
BERNARD LONERGAN AND THOMAS KUHN; THE ADVANCE OF KNOWLEDGE
Abstract: This is a critical analysis of the works of both Thomas Kuhn and Bernard
Lonergan. I summarize the work of Kuhn and his notion of the paradigm. During this gradual
growth of normal science, tension builds as anomalies arise. A crisis occurs which erupts into a
revolutionary shift toward an incommensurately new realm of understanding. This perpetual
cycle continues on, forgetting the past and grasping for what is yet undiscovered. However there
are many pitfalls to this theory. Kuhn strategically sidestepped controversial scientific issues. I
then compare Bernarnd Lonergan‟s work to Kuhn‟s by pointing out the corresponding aspects as
well as the differences. Instead of an outside paradigmatic structure dictating the inner,
investigative drive of a community of scientists, Lonergan‟s method is inside out. He describes
an individual‟s personal, detached, disinterested, pure desire to know the truth. The joint work
with others then leads to ever-higher viewpoints. My conclusion is that Lonergan does not fall
into the same mistakes as Kuhn because he takes into account the larger context of the total
human person ever seeking a more perfect and true knowledge.
Key words: Thomas Kuhn; paradigm; shift; incommensurate; scientific revolution;
structure; higher viewpoint; transformation; advance; pure desire to know; general empirical
method.
Thomas Kuhn‟s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions greatly influenced the common
perception of scientific investigation and the collective advancement of knowledge. Kuhn‟s
definition of the term „paradigm‟ as the scientific community‟s common set of principles and
universally recognized achievements is used in so many different contexts and has become such
a familiar expression that the book can be considered revolutionary in its own right. His
sociological theory depicting science periodically advancing by sudden, radical transformations
of technical understandings, deeply held beliefs, and investigated world-views, labeled by Kuhn
as a scientific revolution, has become the publically accepted understanding of the governing
structure of the scientific enterprise. Looking back at the history of physics, as an example, and
tracing its growth of scientific scholarship, the famous names of Aristotle, Galileo, Copernicus,
Newton, and Einstein quickly emerge. According to Kuhn‟s theory, between these few
individuals who instigated major, rare shifts of understanding, normal science, consisting of
puzzle-solving and data gathering, proceeds along casually. When looking at the evolution of
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
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most human disciplines, this basic sociological model makes sense and seems to accurately
describe the developments. However, from its first publication in 1962, The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions has been greatly critiqued by the scientists and philosophers of science
who have dedicated their lives to these pursuits. Kuhn is criticized for isolating scientific
investigation from all the other factors that go into major world changes as well as siphoning out
an elite group of scientists who make all the true contributions while denigrating all other
investigators. Ultimately, Kuhn is condemned for portraying the scientific path as a winding trail
with no defined direction and no certain goal.
Bernard Lonergan, who first published Insight; A Study of Human Understanding, five
years prior to Kuhn‟s world-shaking book, took great interest in Kuhn‟s ideas. He wrote
extensive notes on the book, which are still in the Lonergan Archive, referred to Kuhn many
times, especially in A Third Collection, and used Kuhn‟s notion of revolution in the context of
theology. The question must be asked: Did Lonergan avoid the mistakes that Kuhn committed?
Like Kuhn, Lonergan also investigated the advancement of knowledge. However, unlike Kuhn,
Lonergan brought the knowing process down to the individual level of a critical mind going
through the general empirical method. This process, if done completely and carefully, can only
lead one to objective truth because of the verification process of judgment. Then, as many
accurate judgments coalesce, Lonergan describes the great change that takes place as a higher-
viewpoint. Several key aspects distinguish Lonergan‟s idea of this new understanding of the
world from Kuhn‟s notion of a revolution.
This paper is a critical analysis of the works of both Thomas Kuhn and Bernard
Lonergan. I summarize the work of Kuhn by highlighting the key features of his theory. He
produces the context of the paradigm in which the progression of normal science can take place.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
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During this gradual, steady growth of normal science, tension slowly builds as data are
discovered that does not fit with the accepted models and theories. A crisis occurs which erupts
into a revolutionary shift toward an incommensurately new realm of understanding. And,
according to Kuhn‟s ideas, this perpetual cycle continues on, forgetting that which lies behind
and grasping for what yet lies undiscovered. However, I next show how this theory falls short of
accurately describing the advancement of scientific knowledge. For the uncritical, sociological
reader, it gives the appearance of a very accurate depiction of the advancement of most
disciplines. Nevertheless, I show how Kuhn strategically sidestepped many controversial
scientific issues and avoided mentioning essential elements in the evolution of any particular
science. That leads me into the work of Lonergan, which I compare to Kuhn‟s work by pointing
out several features that correspond quite closely. Conversely, I explain how Lonergan has a
different approach. Instead of an outside paradigmatic structure dictating the inner, investigative
drive of a community of scientists, Lonergan takes an inside-out method. He describes an
individual‟s personal, detached, disinterested, pure desire to know the truth about the world,
which fuels each human being toward better understandings. He then shows the importance of
the joint work with others that leads to ever-higher viewpoints. My conclusion is that Lonergan
does not fall into the same mistakes as Kuhn because he is able to take into account the larger
context of the total human person ever seeking a more perfect and true knowledge.
The Structure of The Structure
Thomas Kuhn describes a theory of the advancement of scientific knowledge in which
data, conjectures, and procedures of scientific practice are accumulated and constantly revised
over time. He relies on the history of the physical sciences throughout his book as a means of
defining science and then explaining his schematic structure that creates the context for the
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
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accumulation of data and the rise of new problems to solve. His aim is to show that natural
scientists are misleading in their narrow-minded focus on the present questions and
investigations. Instead, Kuhn develops a new concept of science that takes into account an
historical perspective. He analyzes the major shifts of understanding that have taken place, by
the few key people going back as far as the Ancient Greeks. Kuhn also evaluates the extended
periods when science proceeded more slowly and an accepted cluster of well-known theories
governed the scientific outlook.
Kuhn himself was trained as a physicist. It was through the natural sciences that Kuhn
first felt he could confront the pressing problems of the world. However, after taking a history of
science course as a graduate student of theoretical physics, Kuhn found, “that the exposure to
out-of-date scientific theory and practice radically undermined some of (his) basic conceptions
about the nature of science and the reasons for its special success.”1 These out-of-date theories
and methods then became the basis of his formulation for a definition of science itself, which he
states on page one of his book. “Science is the constellation of facts, theories, and methods
collected in current texts (and) scientists are the men who, successfully or not, have striven to
contribute one or another element to that particular constellation.”2 With this backward looking,
historically-minded perspective, Kuhn analyzes several major moments in the history of science
so as to come to an understanding of how science, in general, develops.
What makes Kuhn‟s perspective unique is that he is not trying to bring back out-of-date
theories and perspectives to answer the questions of the present day. Rather, Kuhn analyzes the
laws and discoveries in their own past context “to give maximum coherence to their contextual
1 Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Third Edition (Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press, originally published in 1962, then 1996), vii. 2 Ibid., 1.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
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opinions and closest fit to nature.”3 Then, within that historical context, Kuhn looks for those
particular observations, important experiences, or arbitrary elements that caused the scientist
working on the data at the time to think in a new way. This change then influenced the scientist
to move the investigation in the direction in which it eventually proceeded. Digging deeper,
Kuhn seeks to understand that which makes the scientist see the results of an experiment in one
way and not another. What are the set of beliefs about the nature of the universe that the scientist
held which immediately provoked the scientist to make a hypothesis about the data that made the
most sense at the time? What is the ingrained thought process, happening within the scientist‟s
mind, which leads to the decision that the world was functioning in the one way that the scientist
conjectured? What commitments to past studies and previously accepted world-views did the
scientist hold which impelled him to choose one set of data over another? Kuhn, who developed
a deep interest in the psychology of perception, particularly gestalt theory, and was greatly
influenced by his reading of Ludwig Fleck‟s book, The Genesis and Development of a Scientific
Fact, wanted to break open the process scientists undertake when confronting a question. Kuhn
was on a quest to come to know not scientific theory itself, but the method used by scientists to
get to that theory. Though he began his investigation with a „hard science‟ investigative
approach, Kuhn was eventually drawn to probe the underlying influences that affected scientists
through the history of science. These influences caused the scientists to have the perspectives
that they did so as to form the understandings that are still at play in the scientific field.
Looking at the history of science, there are extended periods of time when no major
discoveries occurred. In fact, Kuhn found these stretches of time to be the norm, while the major
discoveries and changes in theories are the exceptions. He gave the name „normal science‟ to the
scientific work in which a community of scientists are involved during these years. According to
3 Ibid., 3.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
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Kuhn‟s historical and sociological analysis, the impression held by the community of scientists
during these periods of normal science is that they know what the world is like. The groups of
scientists are not trying to procure new sorts of phenomena or uncover contradictions to their
firmly held theories. The data that “will not fit the box are often not seen at all. Nor do
scientists normally aim to invent new theories, and they are often intolerant of those invented by
others.”4 What Kuhn makes clear is that the scientists have an anticipated outcome in mind for
their experiments and observations during these times of normal science. Research consists of
fitting the events and phenomena observed in the world with the laws and equations that have
been previously determined. It is a process of deciphering the significant facts within the
research, matching those facts with the theories that are at hand, and articulating those theories.
The scientists simply do not see the world and the data that they are working with in ways other
than that by which their previously established laws, equations, and definitions dictate how they
should be understood. They rely on the promise of success from past, though often still
incomplete, examples. The idea is to extend the knowledge gained from those first instances into
presently observed cases. This is not an easy task. It is what occupies the time of most
scientists‟ careers. Kuhn knows first hand that scientists work at this normal science with great
enthusiasm. They do this because “bringing a normal research problem to a conclusion is
achieving the anticipated in a new way, and it requires the solution of all sorts of complex
instrumental, conceptual, and mathematical puzzles. The man who succeeds proves himself an
expert puzzle-solver, and the challenge of the puzzle is an important part of what usually drives
him on.”5 The puzzle that must be solved is how the observed data fits within the agreed upon
4 Ibid., 24.
5 Ibid., 36.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
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understanding of the world. Each piece of evidence must fit into the box of defined laws
providing the structure within which the scientists are working.
For science to function at all, it must have these previously determined and agreed upon
set parameters. Kuhn gives the name „paradigm‟ to this box of established theories and laws.
Normal science, then, consists of the articulation and re-articulation of the paradigm through the
collection of raw data. “So long as the tools a paradigm supplies continue to prove capable of
solving the problems it defines, science moves fastest and penetrates most deeply through
confident employment of those tools.”6 Normal science does proceed rapidly. The scientists are
guided by a set of rules that are derived from the paradigm and give coherence to the research.
Textbooks act as pedagogical vehicles by explaining clearly the operations and protocol steering
the scientific community‟s research. When there is a general consensus among all scientists as to
how the experiments should run, unanimity in their professional judgments, and wide agreement
on the proper interpretation of observations, then of course progress is far easier to see. In the
later editions of his book, Kuhn revised the term paradigm to “disciplinary matrix: disciplinary
because it refers to the common possession of the practitioners of a particular discipline; matrix
because it is composed of ordered elements of various sorts, each requiring further
specification.”7 Normal science is the pursuit of making all the observations of the physical
world fit into this neat, ordered package of well-defined, commonly understood, theoretically
explained elements.
The danger that Kuhn points out with the paradigm is that scientists can lose their
ingenuity. Even when anomalies and inconsistencies arise in the experimentation, scientists
ingrained in the disciplinary matrix choose not to accept the novelty of their data. They may feel
6 Ibid., 76.
7 Ibid., 182
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
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that they have made a mistake, or the scientists fudge the outcome so as to force the results to fit
with the standard model. If the data do not fit into the paradigmatic box of accepted principles in
a clean and orderly fashion, then there must be explanations that can compensate for the
anomalies and yet still allow for theories to hold. Classic examples of this are the early
observations of planetary motion. The geocentric, Ptolemaic model was the paradigm for over
fourteen centuries. Even when Tycho Brahe acquired extremely accurate measurements of the
five other known planets and mathematically calculated the length and time of the orbits, his
thinking process still stayed within the boundaries of the Ptolemaic paradigm. Retrograde
motion remained the accepted explanation for the movements of the planets visible from earth.
Brahe did not have the creativity or courage to break with the accepted model or question the
accuracy of the firmly rooted theories. The researchers, instead of being true scientists,
according to Kuhn, become expert puzzle-solvers.
The main theme of The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is that paradigms can and do
change. When the anomalies become too great, and the researchers have severe difficulty
keeping their known puzzle-solving techniques inline with the acceptable and coherent data of
the set paradigm, a crisis builds up pressure that must somehow be released. “Paradigms are not
corrigible by normal science at all. Instead, as we have already seen, normal science ultimately
leads only to anomalies and to crises. And these are terminated, not by deliberation and
interpretation, but a relatively sudden unstructured event like the gestalt switch.”8 The rigidity of
the paradigm can no longer hold as more and more inconsistent data are collected that stubbornly
refuses to fit with what has been established previously. Kuhn describes the transformation of
the world that takes place within the scientists‟ viewpoints. The scientific community is no
longer able to function within the past disciplinary matrix. A whole new model and system of
8 Ibid., 122.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
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theories must be established which satisfactory accounts for all of the inconsistencies brought
against the last paradigm. “The decision to reject one paradigm is always simultaneously with
the decision to accept another, and the judgment leading to that decision involves the comparison
of both paradigms with nature and with each other.”9 Kuhn feels that the resulting new
paradigmatic structure must be revolutionarily different. Though the physical world continues to
exist as it always has, the scientific community who experiences this abrupt shift, see a different
world. The newly devised equations and theories are incommensurate with the previous models.
A new language of speaking about the research develops that simply would not have made sense
before. The past textbooks preserving the paradigm of old must now be discarded and new ones
written. A new, neater, simpler, more suitable theory takes over from the primitive one. Kuhn
calls this major, abrupt change of paradigms a scientific revolution.
The scientific community that goes through this revolution is Kuhn‟s main group of
interest. In Bernard Lonergan‟s reading of Kuhn‟s theory, he made the comment that “the
scientific community is of fundamental importance. It is a sociological concept of science,
locating the science not in books or periodicals, not in the mind of this or that man, but in the
group of men at the cutting edge of a developing science and gradually moving from the tension
and opposition of disagreement to the unison of a consensus.”10
As Kuhn looked back through
the history of science, he found that a new paradigm could not be forced onto a community,
much like the people in Plato‟s cave could not be forced to see the light of truth. The crisis
within the community and the tension that exists from unsolvable problems cause the scientific
community to be in need of a new paradigm. Then, the right person comes along who is able to
capture the community‟s attention. This person must have a proposal that resolves the tension
9 Ibid., 77.
10 Bernard Lonergan, “The Analogy of Revolution,” (in the Lonergan Archives, A2041), 2.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
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and calms the crisis that arose from the previous paradigm. The individuals who were able to do
this throughout history made the crucial discoveries at the right time. They were the elite few
who were courageous enough to think of the world in ways never conceived of by anyone else.
They thought „outside the box‟ of the paradigm and took a risk by making a hypothesis that did
not fit with any previously established theories. A revolution takes a great scientist to make an
act of judgment that impels the rest of the scientific community to reject the past disciplinary
matrices. “For the sciences, like other professional enterprises, do need their heroes and do
preserve their names. Fortunately, instead of forgetting these heroes, scientists have been able to
forget or revise their works.”11
Kuhn often times found these revolutionaries to be quite young
or new to the field so as not to be overly ingrained with or committed to the standard paradigm.
Werner Heisenberg is a classic example of one who at the age of twenty-four published his
famous paper on the quantum mechanical notion of uncertainty, contradicting even the great
physics genius, Einstein. Kuhn‟s analysis uncovered the similarities that existed between the
revolutions caused by individuals like Galileo, Copernicus, Newton, Lavoisier, Einstein, and
Heisenberg. He found that “Scientists often speak of the „Scales falling from their eyes‟ or of the
„lighting flash‟ that „inundates‟ a previously obscure puzzle, enabling its components to be seen
in a new way that for the first time permits its solution.”12
Kuhn sometimes found that the
revolutionary illumination came to the person in sleep or moments of relaxation. When the right
mind was struggling to solve a previously unsolvable problem, it was all of a sudden transformed
to link together components of a new and unique paradigm. From these moments of insight, a
new paradigm took shape within the scientific community.
11
Kuhn (1962), 139. 12
Ibid., 122.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
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After this tidal wave of a revolution, scientific investigation continues once again, but
now with a whole new outlook on the world. In order for the new paradigm to be accepted by
the community it “must promise to preserve a relatively large part of the concrete problem-
solving ability that has accrued to science through its predecessors.”13
Normal science then
resumes in the wake of the revolution, but now with a radically different mentality. The puzzle-
solving research mops up all the components that were shaken up by the revolution and attempts
to fit the observations and data into the new structure of theories. With the advancement, Kuhn
finds that the discipline of science becomes increasingly more specialized. “Revolution narrows
the scope of the community‟s professional concerns, increases the extent of its specialization,
and attenuates its communication with other groups, both scientific and lay. Though science
surely grows in depth, it may not grow in breadth as well.”14
The wake of a successful paradigm
shift should make the scientific enterprise more efficient. New and stronger arguments based on
the best-known observations should be the backing to the scientific theories. And, as Kuhn says,
“until the scientist has learned to see nature in a different way, the new fact is not quite a
scientific fact at all.”15
Kuhn‟s closing comment about this theory of the advancement of knowledge is that it is
very much like biological evolution. As the course of scientific investigation goes through this
perpetual cycle of normal science, to crisis, to revolution, to a new level of normal science, Kuhn
makes the argument that there is no ideal goal for its progression. Science is constantly
advancing and developing a greater understanding of the intricacies of existence, but Kuhn,
presents his theory as an alternative to the notion that there should be progression toward a
desired goal. This is not to say that he believes scientific progress to be a process that is not self-
13
Ibid., 169. 14
Ibid., 170. 15
Ibid., 53.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
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correcting or ever seeking an “increasingly detailed and refined understanding of nature.”16
Rather, Kuhn‟s point is that the human mind will never come to a point of having a perfect and
true understanding of the way the universe works. Rather than hoping for this ultimate goal or
constantly seeking that which we wish to attain but never will, Kuhn stresses the importance of
appreciating where science has come from and what science has accomplished at the present
time. The accumulation of factual knowledge of the world which science has already done is
enormous. Many paradigms have come and gone. Old schools of thought have given rise to
new ones only for those to fade out of existence for the next generations. Structures of
paradigms are built up by the investigators and puzzle-solvers who solidify them with many
theories and observations. An enlightened individual demolishes these structures by means of a
revolutionary breakthrough. The scientist spurs the creation of a new set of structures that fulfill
the needs of the new insights. Kuhn simply wants the scientific community to be in the process
of advancement rather than ever trying to work toward some particular level of understanding.
Weaknesses Within The Structure
As detailed and well developed as Thomas Kuhn‟s theory of paradigms, normal science,
and revolutions is, does it account for the way that science progresses in reality? Without a
doubt, Kuhn‟s theory made a big impression in the realms of philosophy, science, sociology,
anthropology, history, and the philosophy of science. It is acclaimed as the best-known
academic book of the second half of the twentieth century. Over a million copies of the book
have been sold and it has been translated into twenty languages.17
Despite its immense
popularity, it has also caused a great deal of controversy within the communities of natural
scientists and philosophers alike. Does it give an accurate description of the emergence of
16
Ibid., 170. 17
Steve Fuller, Thomas Kuhn; A Philosophical History for our Times (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2000), 1.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
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scientific advancement, or has it led the masses of students and new-paradigm-seekers astray?
After giving a detailed account of Kuhn‟s Structure, I now discuss its weaknesses and pitfalls.
Steve Fuller, a professor of sociology at the University of Warwick, Imre Lakatos, a philosopher
of mathematics and science, and others, have written extended critiques of Kuhn, which I refer to
here. Kuhn is criticized for disregarding the importance of the past theories and historical
developments that have lead science to its present, well-established level of understanding. He is
accused of being an elitist, focusing only on a few world-renowned scientists and forgetting
about the thousands of contributors who have had a hand in the advancement of science. His
view of science appears to be extremely narrow-minded as he fails to mention the many other
influences that affect the way in which scientists push their research. Finally, and most
dangerously, Kuhn‟s notion of the uncritical investigations of a science having no ultimate,
teleological goal has serious consequences if it is truly the case. His view of how the individual
researcher should be doing his or her experiments without having a bigger picture is never
explained. These weaknesses must be acknowledged and investigated.
In chapter one, Kuhn described his life-changing conversion from a hard-scientist
exploring theoretical physics to an historical philosopher of science who wanted to probe the
minds of scientists and the development of scientific ideas. He embarked, at the beginning of the
book, on the quest to uncover the ways in which new, radically different scientific theories
developed from the ones currently held by the scientific community. The only way he knew how
to do this was to look back at the past and completed investigations and old theories. However,
the main premise to Kuhn‟s theory of scientific development is that each new revolutionary
paradigm only comes about through the complete deconstructing of the past matrix of ideas and
the rebuilding of a radically new theory. The present paradigm is so drastically different from
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
14
the previous ones that the same language cannot even be used to talk about them. The past
paradigm is incommensurate with the present. A new way of seeing the world has come about,
a new dimension taken shape, and a leap in understanding has occurred. Therefore, the past
theories become irrelevant and obsolete. This notion is like the famous phrase from St. Paul‟s
first letter to the Corinthians, “When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I
reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me…” although Kuhn
applies it to the entire realm of science. Can a discipline like science forget about its past? Does
Kuhn‟s theory of the constant progression of radically new paradigms leave the door open for
repeating past mistakes in the unknown future? Kuhn‟s theory gives the impression that insights
and established facts are not so much accumulated over time, but the scientific slate of
knowledge is wiped completely clean with each new revolution. Karl Popper made clear this
point in saying, “It would thus be simply false to say that the transition from Newton‟s theory of
gravity to Einstein‟s is an irrational leap, and that the two are not rationally comparable… thus in
science, as distinct from theology, a critical comparison of competing theories is always
possible.”18
Past theories are an essential part of the progress of science despite Kuhn‟s notions.
Another question that must be raised against Kuhn‟s theory is his view of the scientists
themselves. He repeatedly names and gives great praise to Galileo, Copernicus, Newton,
Lavoisier, and Einstein. These were the men whose great genius to think in new ways and
daring courage to question what had never been questioned before, sparked the greatest scientific
revolutions ever conceived. However, the countless scientists working before, between, and
subsequent to these men are given very little credit. According to Kuhn, the majority of the
scientists will spend their whole lives working away in the realm of normal science. Kuhn calls
18
Imre Lakatos & Alan Musgrave, eds., Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (New York: Cambridge University
Press: 1970), 57.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
15
these scientists „puzzle-solvers‟ who work away at phenomena already well explained by
existing paradigms, or phenomena whose nature is indicated by existing paradigms but whose
details can be understood only through further theory articulation. Fuller likens this attitude to a
“new kind of Orwellian history.” Thus, the classic line from Animal Farm, “All animals are
equal, but some animals are more equal than others,” could easily be changed for Kuhn‟s theory
to read, “All scientists are equal, but some scientists are more equal than others.” Can Kuhn
account for scientists like Aristotle, Tycho Brahe, or Johannes Kepler, whose observations and
work were extremely influential on Newton but whose theories were ultimately proven to be
wrong? Newton himself made famous the quote that he was “standing on the shoulders of
giants,” possibly indicating how he relied so heavily on many great scientists before him in order
to establish his revolutionary theories and equations. Kuhn‟s theory is too elitist. His history is
critiqued as a classic example of whiggishness, focusing only on the relevant issues and people
who have contributed to the problems still important in the present day rather than those which,
in the past context, were seen as crucial but have lost importance over time. There are many
people who have contributed to each new step in the advancement of science and who cannot be
merely brushed aside as Kuhn‟s theory seems to do.
A third critique of Kuhn‟s theory is that he takes into consideration only a very idealistic
and, at the same time, extremely small component of the many factors that in reality affect
research and development in the scientific field. For example, Copernicus is one of the first
scientists mentioned by Kuhn whose radical ideas transformed the way people perceived the
structure of the known universe. Copernicus was the first to announce publicly the revolutionary
model of the heliocentric arrangement of the solar system. This is a radically different paradigm
and incommensurate with the geocentric models which, up till that point, had dominated the
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
16
belief system of the authorities of the time and the general public. However, volumes have been
written about the trials Copernicus had to endure for making a statement clearly against Holy
Scripture. The role of the Catholic Church‟s hierarchy and other public authorities greatly
influenced what Copernicus did and what information he released. The other contemporary
researchers that Copernicus had known, and who both helped and hindered the spread of his
ideas, also affected how this revolutionary idea emerged. The equipment Copernicus had to
work with at the time and the funding that he had access to all must be taken into account. After
his discovery, the ripple effect his theories had on the subsequent generations, both the factually
accurate and the mistaken aspects were influential in the total picture of the advancement of
knowledge.
A more recent example is the construction of the National Ignitions Facility in
Livermore, California, that will be the first facility in the world, using the most powerful laser
ever produced, to allow for the study of inertial fusion energy. The conditions that will be
created in NIF‟s special fusion chamber only exist naturally in the center of stars. However, this
incredible research is not just happening for the sake of advancing human knowledge. Many
organizations have played a pivotal role in dictating how the construction was done and what it
would be used for. The first and most powerful force determining the kind of research that will
be done at this facility is the United States Federal Government. “When NIF is completed, it
will be able to provide data for (nuclear weapon) simulations by replicating the conditions that
exist inside a thermonuclear weapon. In addition… the program is developing a number of
innovative technologies for homeland security and national defense.”19
The second objective is
to develop fusion for powering the world. Finally, the third objective is to come to a greater
understanding of the universe. Fuller made the comment that, “Those who called for a
19
https://lasers.llnl.gov/ (accessed May 28th
, 2009.)
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
17
distinction in contexts typically admitted that much of the inspiration or initial ideas for doing
science came from outside science itself… including religion, technology, economics, and
history.”20
Kuhn‟s notion that normal science simply proceeds along, apart from any other
influence or external factor, is extremely naïve and narrow-minded. His theory does not describe
the reality of scientific progress either in the past or the present day.
Finally, Kuhn‟s notion that the progression of science has no end goal in mind has serious
consequences. This critique is by no means admitting that the human race does have a grand
vision of what perfect and complete knowledge of the total universe is, but it is saying that the
discipline of science needs objectives to pursue. As was just mentioned with the development of
the National Ignitions Facility, before the construction is even completed - a process that has
taken the last twelve years - there are hoped-for outcomes of research which the radical new
equipment will allow. The present day world of science is very much driven by the reality of
economics. Major scientific endeavors require large amounts of money that can only be
acquired with grants from wealthy sponsoring organizations and governments. To even be
considered for such grants, the head researchers need to show that the investigations that will be
conducted in the laboratories will have useful and beneficial outcomes. Science is a perpetually
evolving and growing system, but the growth and the drive for an ever-greater understanding are
fueled by both short-term and long-term teleological goals that are not yet attained but could be
in the future. Lakatos‟s reading of Kuhn‟s notion of science is that “it is non-inductive and
irrational… In Kuhn‟s view there can be no logic, but only psychology of discovery.”21
If
science proceeds as Kuhn proposed, of plodding through normal science until too many
20
Fuller, (2000), 34. 21
Imre Lakatos & Alan Musgrave, eds., Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge (New York: Cambridge University
Press: 1970), 179.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
18
anomalies arise, thus forcing a random revolutionary change to the next paradigm without any
direction or purpose or mission, then very little progress will happen.
Worse than that, if science both forgets about past theories and remains so focused on the
present that it has no vision of the future, it becomes susceptible to repeating past mistakes and
getting caught in a very small revolving circle of decline. No progress, revolutions, radical
inventions, or greater understanding can occur in such a trap of the human mind. Fuller quotes
Raymond Aron in saying, “The past is never definitely fixed except when it has no future.”22
Kuhn‟s theory of letting go of a future goal has dangerous consequences. His desire for a greater
appreciation of the present scientific paradigm is not how science functions and will not bring
about the ever greater and deeper understandings of the world.
Kuhn‟s depiction in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions of the scientific enterprise
consisting of long periods of normal scientific investigation within a set structure of beliefs, the
rise of anomalies and crises, and the radical awakening into a new paradigm by a scientific
revolution, has many powerful points and has made a great impact on the academic world.
However, Fuller made the comment that, “It might be said that Structure has a philosopher‟s
sense of sociology, a historian‟s sense of philosophy, and a sociologist‟s sense of history.”23
There are many controversial, inaccurate, and even dangerous aspects to Kuhn‟s proposed theory
of scientific progress. Because of these anomalies, there becomes a need to search for a new and
more accurate theory that gives a more precise description to scientific progress while not
committing the mistakes that led Kuhn away from the truth.
The Lonergan Enterprise
22
Fuller, (2000), 423. 23
Ibid., 32.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
19
Bernard Lonergan also developed a theory of the universal advancement of knowledge.
His magnum opus, Insight, A Study of Human Understanding, was published five years before
Structure and had a completely different approach from that of Kuhn. As opposed to being a
„hard-scientist‟ by training, Lonergan‟s expertise was in philosophy, with some training in
economics. His focus became Thomistic theology, in which he taught and wrote about
immensely. His aim in Insight “was neither to advance mathematics nor to contribute to any of
the specialized branches of science but to seek a common ground on which men of intelligence
meet.”24
This common ground, which Lonergan slowly uncovers, is the pure desire to know: to
know the self, the universe, and the divine. Lonergan‟s main premise is that the human person,
by its very nature, questions. There is a curious desire to come to a knowledge of everything
about everything. This drive propels scientists into their experiments, urges mathematicians
deeper into their equations, and pushes theologians to immerse themselves further into the
mysteries of existence. It is through this questioning that humans experience the intricacies of
life. The human mind takes in these experiences so as to make sense of the world. Then,
according to Lonergan, unique to humans, is the act of judgment analyzing whether the
understandings are true or not. Only when this critically reflective act of judgment occurs is
there an advance of human knowledge. As more and more knowledge is acquired, it is processed
to form theories, combined to make postulates, expanded to overcome past shortcomings, refined
to establish solid definitions, and constantly tested to come to what Lonergan refers to as the
virtually unconditioned. All this then leads to, not a Kuhnian revolution, but an ever-higher
viewpoint, a greater knowledge of all things. This section of the paper summarizes Lonergan‟s
24
Bernard Lonergan, Insight: A Study of Human Understanding, Frederick E. Crowe and Robert M. Doran, eds.,
vol. 3, Collected Works of Bernard Lonergan, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1957, 1992), 7.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
20
theory of the advancement of knowledge and how this alternative approach both relates to
Kuhn‟s theory and how it avoids Kuhn‟s errors.
In order to understand the world, Lonergan explains that humans need to understand their
own process of understanding. If this is done, he says, “not only will you understand the broad
lines of all there is to be understood but also you will possess a fixed base, an invariant pattern,
opening upon all further developments of understanding.”25
Unlike Kuhn, who developed his
whole analysis of the advancement of science by speaking of the external forces and paradigms
of the world affecting, moving, and changing the scientist, Lonergan starts from the inner drive
of the human being. He describes Insight as being written from below upwards as “it consists in
one‟s own rational self-consciousness clearly and distinctly taking possession of itself as rational
self-consciousness.”26
Having such consciousness requires that the person be aware of and in
tune with the personal experiences of life, of living in the world. And this world, according to
Lonergan, is rich and full of meaning. Everything that exists has a purpose and holds a relevance
to its existence. And when the human being feels a rock, grasps the concept of a circle, or
experiences the embrace of a loved one, this meaning is manifested. Meaning is not simply a
description of objects, but is an explanation of what the particular thing is. Meaning is
knowledge. It is the answer to the question, “What is it?” Meaning establishes purpose for the
things of the world and leads to the notion of value. By analyzing the process of how humans
experience the world and the intellectual method used to arrive at an understanding of this
meaning, Lonergan hopes to accomplish two goals. First, he studies the activity of human
knowing, an event consisting of the “general empirical method” of experiencing the world,
understanding the experiences, and judging whether the understanding is so. Secondly,
25
Ibid., 22. 26
Ibid., 13.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
21
Lonergan studies what is known when this process of knowing is taking place within the
individual. “Insight is studied as knowledge, as an event that under determinate conditions
reveals a universe of being.”27
Thus, Lonergan‟s theory of how knowledge advances consists of
coming to a greater understanding of the process of knowing as well as a greater appreciation for
the meaning of that which is known.
Lonergan establishes five differentiated realms of meaning in order to make the
knowledge of everything about everything more manageable. Each of these realms “has arisen
in response to the different conscious aspirations and demands of the human spirit during the
many millennia of our existence on earth.”28
Similar to Kuhn‟s notion of the paradigm, which
consists of a shared set of viewpoints, models, theories, and practices by a community of
investigators, Lonergan‟s realms are also shared models and sets of viewpoints. Likewise, they
do not describe a reality but are rather useful mental constructions providing the structure for one
to describe a reality. In Lonergan‟s psychological analysis of the human person he found that
consciousness naturally divides into these different realms. As a human being grows and
experiences more of the world and learns how to think and reason and evaluate and to make
decisions, and to do actions that promote the human good, each of these different realms
gradually comes into play.
The first and most basic realm is that of common sense. Before getting into abstract
thought experiments, analyzing one‟s feelings, or discerning a difficult life decision, common
sense is a time when the consciousness is undifferentiated. It is the concern of ordinary living
and moving and being. This mode of human existence consists of the routines one has when
getting out of bed or getting ready for bed, actions that are done that do not even need to be
27
Ibid., 16. 28
William Walsh S.J., Realms of Desire; An Introduction to the Thought of Bernard Lonergan (Washington D.C.:
Woodstock Theological Center, forthcoming), 6.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
22
thought about. Common sense is the particular, personal areas of thought that never aspire to
universal viewpoints, systematic definitions, or technical language. The stage of common sense
is the dealings of human consciousness with things that are familiar in the world as they relate to
one‟s personal senses. This is a very important realm that cannot be discarded. “After all, men
of common sense are busy. They have the world‟s work to do… (because) they deal with the
immediate and practical, the concrete and particular.”29
There comes a time where a human is pushed from the familiar to the unfamiliar, from
the obvious to the recondite. The second realm of consciousness is one of theory and logic. It is
at this level where scientists function as they perform their experiments, develop theories,
wrestle with abstract problems, and, as Kuhn would say, puzzle-solve. It is pulling away from
particulars and experiences of the physical, material world, and reaching toward universal
theories and abstract understandings. The big difference between this realm and that of the
commonsense is that it is the realm of a person using logic and reasoning to figure out how
objects of the world relate to each other rather than how they relate simply to the person.
Science for Lonergan consists of the investigation of those internal relations of things and
developing an objective knowledge through experimentation that leads to explanations rather
than myth or mere description. Thus, scientists use technical language to discuss their theories
and express their meanings. The sciences can then be further differentiated within this realm of
meaning. “The laws of physics hold for subatomic elements; the laws of physics and chemistry
hold for chemical elements and compounds; the laws of physics, chemistry, and biology hold for
plants. The laws of physics, chemistry, biology, and sensitive psychology hold for animals; the
laws of physics, chemistry, biology, sensitive psychology, and rational psychology hold for
29
Lonergan (1957), 202.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
23
men.”30
Each different discipline has its own special language, theories, laws, explanations, sets
of problems to solve, challenges to face, and meanings to develop.
When a human shifts from merely knowing the meaning of things to seeking out the
source, operations, and acts of the meaning, then he has entered the third realm. This realm is
that of one‟s own inner consciousness and thought processes. More than simply understanding
how to solve a math problem, decipher a riddle, or logically figure out a puzzle, one who is in
this realm is able to reflect back upon the thinking process that she just did and analyze that very
process itself. No longer is this merely the common, routine, particular, or habitual experience.
It is more than developing the skills or the knowledge it takes to pass a test with the rest of the
students. This stage of meaning is a personal appropriation of one‟s own mind and actions.
Lonergan‟s whole project is to guide the reader to the point of the self-affirmation of “I am a
knower.”31
It is a process that requires each individual person to enter this self-reflective, critical
thinking level of meaning. “No one else, no matter what his knowledge or his eloquence, no
matter what his logical rigor or his persuasiveness, can do it for you.”32
It is only when one has
determined that he or she is a knower that the awareness of the deeply rooted desire of the human
nature to know is made manifest. Rather than blindly carrying out the methods and following
the protocol of the science in which one is working, the true knower is conscious of the deeper
implications of knowing and is able to describe how he is personally affected by the actions he is
performing. More than just a Kuhnian „puzzle-solver,‟ the Lonerganian „knower‟ is fully
thinking, where “thinking is a moment in the unfolding of the pure desire to know…it is
purposive. It is the tentative determination of the all-inclusive notion of being.”33
It is in this
30
Ibid., 281. 31
Ibid., 351. 32
Ibid., 13. 33
Ibid., 383.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
24
third level of interiority and at this moment of thinking when one is fully alive as an authentic
human being.
Lonergan elaborates extensively about this third level of meaning. This cognitional
activity has many deep implications including the very existence of the universe. Lonergan says,
“cognitional activity is itself but a part of this universe, so its heading to being is but the
particular instance in which universal striving towards being becomes conscious and intelligent
and reasonable. Such is the meaning we would attach to the name finality.”34
The human
cognitional process is truly a marvel within the whole of the universe. The meanings of all
things emerge through this process of perceiving the existence of the world, rationally
investigating abstract concepts, and reasonably reflecting on the deeper implications of all that
exists. Thus, it is through the human process of cognition that objective knowledge of the world
is acquired and how the becoming of proportionate being comes about. What Lonergan means
by proportionate being is whatever is to be known by the ordered set of the human acts of
experience, intelligent grasp, and reasonable affirmation.35
When this process of cognition
happens and the set of actions takes place, knowledge advances and can continue to advance
until everything about everything is known. This, for Lonergan, is the ultimate goal, the final
fulfillment of the universe. This is the most natural and authentic and uniquely human method of
existing, that Lonergan, for the first time in human history, clearly establishes. The heuristic
structure of human understanding allows for the rich and “fruitful unfolding of the anticipations
of intelligence.”36
This structure is composed of rules or what he calls the canons of operation of
34
Ibid., 471. 35
Mark D. Morelli and Elizabeth A. Morelli, eds., The Lonergan Reader (Toronto, University of Toronto Press,
1997), 230. 36
Lonergan (1957), 93.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
25
the empirical method. By carrying out this process in the structure of the canons, each person
can come to a more profound knowledge of the universe.
The empirical scientist advances to higher viewpoints, not solely by the construction of
symbolic images [as in mathematics], but more fundamentally by the expansiveness, the
constructiveness, the analyses, the constant checking, and the systematizing tendencies of
the canon of operations. In virtue of that canon, fresh data are ever being brought to
light, to force upon scientific consciousness the inadequacies of existing hypotheses and
theories, to provide the evidence for their revision, and in the limit, when minor
corrections no longer are capable of meeting the issue, to demand the radical
transformation of concepts and postulates that is named a higher viewpoint‟37
Much like Kuhn‟s notion of the scientific revolution, Lonergan‟s conception of the higher
viewpoint is a leap in understanding that give the human race a whole new perspective of
meaning. It is the accumulation of many insights made by many inquiring and critical intellects
driving towards an ever-greater understanding. Primitive terms and relations are altered, past
mistakes are overcome, insufficient gaps of understanding are filled with the proper knowledge,
and the lower viewpoint gives rise to the higher. With this new viewpoint, a more expansive
vision of all the sciences often takes place. Thus, seemingly unrelated sciences can be united and
differences in definitions, terms, theories, and models can be overcome. Due to the new
perspective and a clearer knowledge brought by the higher viewpoint, a higher order of meaning
between all things becomes articulated. A unity and simplicity and elegance of all things are
glimpsed as successively higher viewpoints are attained. “Behind every change, there is an
underlying unity, and that unity may be formulated explicitly on the level of heuristic
anticipation or of a consciously adopted method or of a dialectical metaphysics.”38
The mentality that supports, sustains, and promotes this higher viewpoint, Lonergan calls
a cosmopolis. This mentality is much like Kuhn‟s use of the scientific community who all share
37
Robert M. Doran, “October 9, 2003, Part 2” in “Lonergan‟s Insight Class Notes” 38
Lonergan (1957), 760.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
26
the same paradigm and all go through the scientific revolution together. Lonergan, on the other
hand, takes a more idealistic and hopeful stance. He says that this community, who has attained
and is perpetually in pursuit of higher viewpoints has reached a level of understanding above
political policies and regulations that only clog the system. In fact,
It is neither class nor state, that stands above all their claims, that cuts them down to size,
that is founded on the native detachment and disinterestedness of every intelligence, that
commands man‟s first allegiance, that implements itself primarily through that allegiance,
that is too universal to be bribed, too impalpable to be forced, too effective to be
ignored‟... Cosmopolis is concerned to make operative the timely and fruitful ideas that
otherwise are inoperative. So far from employing power or pressure or force, it has to
witness to the possibility of ideas being operative without such backing.39
Lonergan‟s ideal community is run by the true love of wisdom and the pure, detached,
disinterested desire to know. This, then, leads to the fourth realm of meaning. More than the
everyday experiences of common sense, more stimulating than the intellectually developed
theories, and even more profound than the interior self-reflective insights, is the level of self-
transcendence. It is at this level that the questions of being and existence are raised. To answer
them no longer requires common sense, logic, puzzle-solving, genius or self-knowledge. Rather,
one must acquire faith. The language is one of symbols, myth, the mystics, and silence. It is the
level of consciousness where the person can simply be aware of being, the being that unites the
whole universe. It is the realm of the sacred.
The final realm of human conscious is one about which Lonergan wrote very little. Later
scholars have speculated on what is still missing in the whole spectrum of human knowing. The
most agreed-upon theory is that of beauty and art. “Art presents the beauty, the splendor, the
glory, the majesty, the plus that is in things, the profundity of the pattern in things, indeed, as
39
Ibid., 263-264.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
27
Hopkins said, „the dearest freshness deep down things.‟”40
Human knowing consists of all of
these dimensions and realms of meaning. Authentic human living is ever seeking a higher
viewpoint or revolutionary breakthrough of experiences in the common sense realm, of
understanding in the realm of theory, of reflection in the realm of interiority, of faith in the level
of transcendence, and of awe in the realm of art and beauty. Human beings will never be
satisfied with mediocre experiences, partial understandings, limited self-reflections, half-hearted
acts of faith, or the mere standard or ugly. Rather, Lonergan stresses humanity will be ever
searching until that moment of finality when everything that can be known about everything is
known.
I now look back at the critiques charged against Thomas Kuhn and show that Lonergan‟s
system has sufficiently avoided the errors. The first comment was that Kuhn‟s notion of the
scientific revolution implied a complete break from past theories and models as each successive
paradigm was incommensurate with the last one. As has been shown, Lonergan‟s theory is not
so much about breaking from the past with each successive higher viewpoint, but rather a
reformulating of past theories, an adapting of the primitive models, and a melding together of the
lower viewpoints because of the unity that emerged with the acquirement of the new knowledge.
Lonergan is acutely aware of the importance of each stage of successive insights. He uses the
simple example of the transition from arithmetic to algebra. Just because one has mastered the
old rules and formulated new ones for simpler, more exact, and more efficient operations does
not mean that the old rules are useless or forgotten. In fact, Lonergan even says that there may
be times when the person must go back to the old rules to recall how those operations worked,
practice them, and see again how the transition to the higher viewpoint of new rules and
40
Walsh (Forthcoming), 7.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
28
operations occurred. Past theories and the lower viewpoints, for Lonergan, are extremely
important.
The second critique of Kuhn was his elitist position of pointing out the true scientists who
are remembered for being the main instigators of the great revolutions and forgetting about
everyone else. Again, Lonergan‟s premise is for each and every human person to go through the
process of self-appropriation and come to the realization for him or herself that “I am a knower”.
Of course Lonergan would admit that there were important people through the history of science
who made great contributions with their insights. However, for Lonergan the advancement of
knowledge is a human enterprise in which each and every person has a vital role to perform so as
to contribute to the total universal viewpoint of all things. The third critique of Kuhn, that he
fails to acknowledge all of the factors at play within scientific advancement, is a non-issue for
Lonergan. He wrote about every realm of human knowledge, from the common sense of daily
life, to theories and science, to feelings and interior dispositions, to the levels of faith and the
sacred, and even onward to the area of beauty and art: Lonergan covers the whole spectrum of
possible influences that affect each person, who is a member of the scientific communities,
which are parts of the whole society. Lonergan does admit that there are some details that are
irrelevant to what an insight accomplishes and he calls these details „empirical residue.‟ The
type of tree that Isaac Newton may have been sitting under when he first formulated the idea of
gravity is such an example. However, by no means can he be accused of leaving out important
details involved in the development of human knowledge.
Finally, Lonergan, from page one to page 770 of Insight, continually stresses the final
goal of the human enterprise. Humans by their nature desire an unrestricted knowledge of
everything about everything. Whether or not this is possible, it is an ideal and a motivating force
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
29
that ever impels humanity to an ever-greater understanding of what is objectively true. It draws
each person toward an even higher viewpoint, and thus a more authentic being. The very notion
of transcendence implies a going beyond, a going beyond mere present conditions, and a going
beyond human limitation. Lonergan‟s work itself,
began from insight as an interesting event in human consciousness. It went on to insight
as a central event in the genesis of mathematical knowledge. It went beyond
mathematics to study the role of insight in classical and statistical investigations. It went
beyond the reproducible insights of scientists to the more complex functioning of
intelligence in common sense, in its relations to its psycho-neural basis, and in its
historical expansion in the development of technology, economics, and polities. It went
beyond all such direct and inverse insights to the reflective grasp that grounds judgment.
It went beyond all insights as activities, to consider them as elements in knowledge. It
went beyond actual knowledge to its permanent dynamic structure… it has been
confronted both with man‟s incapacity for sustained development and with his need to go
beyond the hitherto considered procedures of his endeavor to go beyond.41
Thomas Kuhn and Bernard Lonergan were both personally intrigued by the fundamental
inquiry of what it is in humans that gives them the ability, ingenuity, creativity, and insight to see
the world in a new way and advance the realm of human knowledge. Kuhn came at the question
from the perspective of perception psychology and ingrained mind-sets imposed upon a
community of scientists by means of a paradigm. Only when problems arise and a crisis forces a
change does a major revolution take place and a new, radically different viewpoint ensue.
Lonergan, on the other hand, started with the fundamental desire that lies within all human
beings; to know, in an unrestricted fashion, everything about everything. This desire drives
humans to come to experience the world in a simple, commonsensical way as well as in a
complex, theoretical, and abstract way. Both Kuhn and Lonergan make explicit the human
desire for true knowledge. Kuhn feels this happens naturally with the self-correcting process of
shifts from inadequate paradigms to increasingly better ones. Lonergan says true knowledge is
41
Lonergan (1957), 659.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
30
only gained by the intentional, critical, self-reflective act of judgment. The affirmative response
to the question „is it so?‟ through the heuristic structure of human cognition leads to facts. As
these facts accumulate and coalesce, an increasingly higher viewpoint of what there is to know
about the universe takes shape. Kuhn stops here and says that humanity should be satisfied with
what has been accomplished and what is currently known. Lonergan makes clear that humanity
cannot accept incomplete knowledge and the lack of total being. There is a level of
transcendence above and beyond human limitation and rational understanding. There is a realm
of beauty and perfection that fulfills every human longing.
Copyright 2009 by Christopher Krall S.J.
31
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